Chunking Chapter 3 of Cajas de cartón

Day 1: Today we talked about our first day of school and how we felt. Next we made some predictions of what Francisco´s first day might be like and why. We read as a class then they read to the middle of page 16 as a group. I only had 3 students today.

Day 2: Tomorrow we will be chunking out the rest of page 16, page 17 and part of page 18. I created six stations for students to work at on their own. This way they can focus on sections of the text and not be so intimidated. I highlighted key words for my students who really struggle to help them grasp the big picture. There is a lot of drawing going on at the stations. Here are some shots of what the station directions look like. I realize they are bit difficult to read, but it gives you an idea.

Day 3: Students will read 10 minutes on their own then recap and continue working with a partner for 20 minutes. We´ll review as a class at the end.

Day 4: I have 5 students. I am going to assign each of them a character and a section of the text to read and understand. Next they will get together as a class, fill in the gaps (jigsawing the text) and finally act out the scene. This is the part where Curtis and Francisco fight about the coat. With time left we´ll continue to read how Francisco reacted to the event and have our Francisco act it out.

Day 5: We will read as a class. I will only have 3 students again because of a track meet.

I hope to help keep the text fresh and as undaunting (which apparently is not a word but I can´t think of a better one on such a short post) as possible for the students. Hopefully things will go well!

To round out this chapter I will probably have students do some reflective writing comparing their school days to Francisco´s or have them take on one of the roles (teacher, Curtis, Arthur, another student in class) and explain how they would react in this chapter.